"Jeroni Paul" wrote in message
...
On 12 Juny, 20:05, David Nebenzahl wrote:
None. Use a mail/news client (I use Thunderbird, available free; there
are lots of others out there. Pick one you like. Just don't use
Micro$oft's Outlook Express.)

While the design of usenet is nice and using a news client confortable
I find it much more practical nowadays to use a web based interface
like google groups. While not the best it has many advantages like not
depending anymore on unreliable news servers and can be accessed from
everywhere without any special configuration or installation
requeriment.

On the other hand I never had a problem with outlook express.

Maybe the news server thing depends on where in the world you are. Over the
years, I have had several ISPs ranging from quite small outfits, up to big
boys like Virgin Media (formerly NTL), whom I am with now, and I can
honestly say that I have never had any issues with their news servers being
unreliable or slow to keep up to date.

I can't really comment about web based newsgroup access, as I've never used
it. I can see the possible advantage of being able to use it on any machine,
anywhere you happen to be, in the same way that web based e-mail has this
advantage. However, setting that one 'advantage' aside, it seems to me that
access via a news client is a much more straightforward way to use what is
after all, a very simply structured side to the net, going back to the days
when it was all a lot simpler.

The only other comment I would make about being a web based newsgroup user,
is that your posts may well not get seen by too many people as, due to the
amount of spam and general poor usage that has beset a lot of groups lately,
many long term users have blanket filters in place, to remove any post,
legitimate or not, from web based sources, where most of this abuse comes
from.

Arfa